Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Basic Design Bar Tab - Trivia Test

So why has there been a Basics Design Bar tab all these years?

a - Because user studies said it was needed
b - Because Leonid Raiz said so
c - Because Jim Balding said so
d - Because Basics just sounded good
e - none of the above

Well the true story was shared recently by Erik from Inside the Factory. He wrote:

"Lets take as an example the old Basics tab. Some users we tested indicated they liked Basics. But when pressed, they usually conveyed a story about not being able to find something as they grew with the product. A little known fact: Basics was originally designed to make the product easier to demonstrate; the marketing guy would not have to flip around too much during the demo. In reality, Basics becomes a crutch. After using it for a while, user find themselves asking, "Hmm, Floor is on Basics, but Floor by Face is not. Is it on the Massing tab or the Modeling Menu or somewhere else? " This results in a lot of wasted searching - even after learning where the tool is located."

The above is an excerpt discussing the motivation for the upcoming user interface changes we will see in the Revit 2010 products. I love little stuff like that and had to share it here...so what are you waiting for? Go read the blog yourself!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The part about the marketing guy demo'in Revit, really made me laugh!!! My experience is that sales and marketing guys should stay away from technical software. :-)

Anonymous said...

Agree with David.

It's the first thing I turn off when setting up a new user. I've found that it just confuses new users for the very reasons described.

Jim Balding said...

I always heard that it was the tools you used at the beginning of a project allowing you to get rolling faster. Turns out that marketing runs the show... HA!!!